Warren Court

February 29, 2004 | Jim Newton, Jim Newton is a Los Angeles Times editor currently on leave while writing a biography of Earl Warren.

In deciding the case of Brown vs. Board of Education in 1954, the Supreme Court, led by its newly installed chief justice, Earl Warren, concluded that "in the field of public education, the doctrine of 'separate but equal' has no place." Few words uttered by members of the United States Supreme Court have more profoundly shaped American society.

Southern Californians with a taste for politics or public policy probably know Erwin Chemerinsky best as the reliably liberal voice in countless left-right radio and television debates about timely legal questions or as a key contributor to Los Angeles charter reform efforts. Far fewer will be familiar with his day job as an influential legal scholar ? author of a widely used textbook on the Constitution and professor of that subject at USC, Duke and, most recently, UC Irvine's School of Law, where he is also founding dean.

In the 15 years he served as chief justice of the United States, Earl Warren presided over a revolution in American law. In 1954, only one year after President Dwight D. Eisenhower tapped him to head the court, Warren wrote the unanimous opinion in Brown vs. Board of Education repudiating the long-standing, bigotry-sustaining doctrine of "separate but equal" and declaring segregated schools unconstitutional.

May 24, 2009 | Jim Newton, Jim Newton is editor of The Times' editorial pages and the author of "Justice for All: Earl Warren and the Nation He Made."

Is empathy a desirable quality in a Supreme Court justice? President Obama has said he's searching for it in his nominee to replace retiring Justice David H. Souter, but as a qualification for a jurist, it gives conservatives the willies and can produce mixed results in our legal system. We expect judges to resist empathy and instead impose the law evenhandedly.

May 24, 2009 | Jim Newton, Jim Newton is editor of The Times' editorial pages and the author of "Justice for All: Earl Warren and the Nation He Made."

Is empathy a desirable quality in a Supreme Court justice? President Obama has said he's searching for it in his nominee to replace retiring Justice David H. Souter, but as a qualification for a jurist, it gives conservatives the willies and can produce mixed results in our legal system. We expect judges to resist empathy and instead impose the law evenhandedly.

June 25, 2006 | Samuel Walker, SAMUEL WALKER is professor emeritus of criminal justice at the University of Nebraska at Omaha. He has written 13 books on policing and civil liberties, and he served as a consultant to the Justice Department in two lawsuits against local police departments.

A FRIEND OF mine e-mailed me last week with some exciting news -- the Supreme Court had cited one of my criminal justice policy books in an important, late-term decision. My law professor friends tell me that being mentioned by the court is a huge deal. And my 93-year-old mother in Cleveland will certainly be impressed that her son has finally done something worthy of note. Alas, as I surfed the Net for news about Hudson vs. Michigan, my excitement quickly turned to dismay, then horror.

Southern Californians with a taste for politics or public policy probably know Erwin Chemerinsky best as the reliably liberal voice in countless left-right radio and television debates about timely legal questions or as a key contributor to Los Angeles charter reform efforts. Far fewer will be familiar with his day job as an influential legal scholar ? author of a widely used textbook on the Constitution and professor of that subject at USC, Duke and, most recently, UC Irvine's School of Law, where he is also founding dean.

It seems long overdue that a documentary film be made on the remarkable career of Earl Warren who presided over the United States Supreme Court spanning the terms of four presidents, from 1954 to 1969.

The Supreme Court's de facto overturning of Roe vs. Wade is a victory for Big Brother over the privacy rights of multitudes of women in this country. More disquieting is the unprecedented action of the high court in taking away a previously granted constitutional right. The Rehnquist court, with its conservative majority, has a real potential to become a truly reactionary tribunal over the next 10 to 15 years. If that be the case, the progress made by the Warren court is in real jeopardy, which in my view does not bode well for constitutional liberties.

In reply to Raoul Berger (Commentary, Aug. 27), who wants to know why precedents established by the Warren Court should be more sacrosanct than those the court overturned, for example, Roe vs. Wade, I find the following reason compelling: The Warren Court's precedents assert the rights of the individual against the power of the government. Berger argues that the "right of privacy" asserted by Justice William Douglas is not mentioned in the Constitution. I would remind him that Amendment IX in the Bill of Rights states: "The enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people."

June 12, 2008 | David A. Nichols, David A. Nichols is the author of "A Matter of Justice: Eisenhower and the Beginning of the Civil Rights Revolution."

After Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton holed up in Sen. Dianne Feinstein's living room last week for a private tete-a-tete, speculation mushroomed as to what Obama might be offering his former rival. Pundits cited all the possibilities: the vice presidency, a spot in the Cabinet, Senate majority leader and -- yes -- appointment to the Supreme Court. Is it possible that Obama might adopt Dwight Eisenhower's 1952 strategy for dealing with a contentious political rival? California Gov.

October 1, 2006 | Karl Fleming, Karl Fleming is the author of "Son of the Rough South: An Uncivil Memoir."

ON my office wall hangs a faded leaflet I picked up on a Dallas street the day John F. Kennedy was shot. It shows two police-booking-style photos of the president, beneath which blares the line "Wanted for Treason" and the accusations that he aided "Communist inspired racial riots" and "illegally invaded a sovereign state" when he sent U.S. troops to quell a riot that greeted a black student's entrance to the University of Mississippi in 1962.

June 25, 2006 | Samuel Walker, SAMUEL WALKER is professor emeritus of criminal justice at the University of Nebraska at Omaha. He has written 13 books on policing and civil liberties, and he served as a consultant to the Justice Department in two lawsuits against local police departments.

A FRIEND OF mine e-mailed me last week with some exciting news -- the Supreme Court had cited one of my criminal justice policy books in an important, late-term decision. My law professor friends tell me that being mentioned by the court is a huge deal. And my 93-year-old mother in Cleveland will certainly be impressed that her son has finally done something worthy of note. Alas, as I surfed the Net for news about Hudson vs. Michigan, my excitement quickly turned to dismay, then horror.

When Tony Kennedy was a child in Sacramento, a frequent guest at his family's home was the popular Republican governor, Earl Warren. Kennedy's father, Bud, was a prominent lobbyist and an admirer of the governor. He "always used to tell me what a principled man Earl Warren was," Kennedy recalled in an interview.

Sacramento It seemed like a wonderful idea at the time: Honor a great California governor with a small monument -- one that could bring a smile to the most jaded politician or apolitical tourist. But the idea has been quietly dropped, the victim of an unhealed wound. Earl Warren was not just a great governor. He was California's most popular governor, the only one elected three times.

February 29, 2004 | Jim Newton, Jim Newton is a Los Angeles Times editor currently on leave while writing a biography of Earl Warren.

In deciding the case of Brown vs. Board of Education in 1954, the Supreme Court, led by its newly installed chief justice, Earl Warren, concluded that "in the field of public education, the doctrine of 'separate but equal' has no place." Few words uttered by members of the United States Supreme Court have more profoundly shaped American society.

Some editorial writers have denounced as a kind of impropriety the announced willingness of a majority of the Supreme Court to reconsider the 1976 Runyon vs. McCrary decision. That decision was one of a series, begun by a 1968 Warren court decision (Jones vs. Alfred H. Mayer Co.) that vastly expanded federal power over private persons in civil rights matters. So doing, the Jones decision specifically overruled a 1906 decision and departed from a nearly century-old common understanding of the scope of civil rights legislation that was enacted in the aftermath of the Civil War. Some of the judges who participated in the 1976 decision in Runyon vs. McCrary thought the recent precedents relied on were wrong, but they went along anyway.

Thurgood Marshall simply stayed too long on the bench. In the end, he was increasingly isolated in his opinions and ended up basically muttering to himself because time had passed him by. All was well and good during the counterproductive years of the Warren court, but that changed when America's leaders regained their senses and reined in a runaway judiciary. If you were a law-abiding, hard-working, God-fearing citizen, Marshall basically had no time for you. Your rights took a back seat to those of vicious criminals, slackers and those who wanted a handout rather than a hand up. It has taken years to undo the damage done by the Warren court and much more remains to be done.

At the Supreme Court a week ago, during oral arguments in the McCain-Feingold campaign finance case, I was hanging on every word uttered by Chief Justice William Rehnquist and Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. They are widely believed to be the swing justices on a court that is divided on the constitutionality of the campaign finance law's provisions regulating "soft money" and issue advocacy.

January 5, 2003 | Edward Lazarus, Edward Lazarus is the author of "Closed Chambers: The Rise, Fall and Future of the Modern Supreme Court." He is a lawyer in private practice.

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